On Kotor We’re in Kotor. Brilliant beautiful Kotor, nestled on the Bay of Kotor, a stunning spot with mountains disappearing straight into brilliant blue seas. Step back. We spent two days in Podogorica, the capital of Montenegro, taking a little side-quest out to Ostrog Monastery – a blazing white building built into the side of a cliff. It was constructed back in the 1600s, originally tucked into the cliffs as a protective measure against the Turks, but now it makes it a quiet calm sanctuary in the 38 degree heat. The options for transport to Ostrog are a bus tour at 40 Euros per person, a train and a two hour hike (hitch-hike if you’re lucky), or Neno, a middle-aged taxi driver who spends the entire trip driving one handed and mumbling into his phone. It seems like Neno has some family drama going on, unfortunately he speaks no English, but he stays on the road and cranks the air-conditioning so we’re happy. We arrive at the monastery to a crowd of people – there’s a long line out the front snaking down the hill, starting at the entrance gate where people are asked to dress modestly – I’ve worn full pants for the occasion, the first time in two weeks, but anyone with bare legs is given a giant monk’s smock to wear. Most people wrap them around their waist just to cover their legs, but some people put them on properly, and it feels like some sort of pre-school art convention, ill-fitting smocks for all. Continue reading “On Kotor”
On Montenegro Our bus driver is too angry for seven in the morning. Well, maybe he’s angry because it’s seven in the morning, but when I tell him I don’t have any Euros for the baggage and ask if he can take card, he yells at me and throws our bags on the ground. Grace scurries off to find an atm to get cash out and gets slugged with an 18% transaction fee. I take pity on the other guy who also just had his bag thrown on the ground and we cover his bag fee too. Then we climb aboard for what is meant to be a five hour bus trip (spoiler alert, it wasn’t). The first hour of the trip is glorious, driving along the Croatian coast-line from Dubrovnik to Montenegro. When we get close to the border we run into some hectic traffic and the bus driver puts the bus in park on the middle of the freeway and walks off down the road. We sit there for a bit wondering if we should follow him, or wait, or take the chance to wee while we can, but he comes back and the bus edges along again, taking almost an hour to cover the last kilometre of Croatia. At the border crossing the bus driver mumbles something in Croatian and then gets off. I see him drop his passport in the middle of the road, and someone else on the bus takes that as a cue. We all pile off the bus and stand in the thirty five degree heat. We get ‘stamped out’ of Croatia by a guy in a mirrored box on the side of the road. You can’t see him because the hole is down at waist height and small enough to only allow one hand with a passport in, so I push my passport in and strain my ears for a response. I look at myself in the mirror. I hear the clunk of a stamp and my passport gets pushed back out. I go to find a toilet. Continue reading “On Montenegro”
On Budapest We got scammed in Budapest. Well, not really scammed. Scammed in the idea that we spent money we weren’t planning on spending and definitely got overcharged, but when you have six Hungarian men playing double basses and cimbalon at you, what are you going to do? … Backtrack. It’s been an odd week. We started off in Edinburgh. 18 degrees. Rain. A whiskey tasting at Devil’s Advocate, a little whiskey bar on a ‘close’, a tiny alley in between buildings. I was introducing Grace to my high school friend Megan who I hadn’t seen in ten years. Like most of my oldest relationships, the conversation start fairly superficial (what do you do for work) and dives very deep quickly (how’s your childhood trauma treating you). Grace got a pretty deep look into my teenage years, I got to re-examine a bunch of child-hood beliefs, we drank some smokey whiskey. Followed it up with a cod sausage and a late night train back to Glasgow where we spent the day exploring the first of many museums. We stayed at a ‘tenement’ in Glasgow, which is basically an apartment, but originally built as low cost housing. With the passage of time, what was a cheap flat in the 1800s that would have housed 12 people is now a trendy light-filled four bedroom apartment walking distance from town. This particular one had incredibly high ceilings, a grand piano in the living room and an odd slant to the doorways. Glasgow was bombed during World War II and half of the building came down. When they rebuilt it they braced up the still standing section as much as they could, but there was still some irregularities. Squeaky floor boards and doors that don’t quite shut. Continue reading “On Budapest”
On Japanuary After almost three years spent at home, drinking beers solo by the BBQ in the back park and thinking wistfully of busier times, this last month made up for the years of inaction. It kicked off on Boxing Day with a two week, twelve date Gusto tour, followed by a blessed two days at home (mainly spent invoicing venues, tracking spreadsheets, attempting to scramble together lesson plans and wash off two weeks of grime). Then we flew to Japan. Japan’s been on the cards for a while. Facebook memories informs I went there exactly ten years ago with my friend Steve, but time and I have done a pretty good job of wiping most of those experiences away. There were a couple of key Japanese phrases lodged in the old memory bank, arigato - ‘thank you’, konichiwa – ‘hello’ and watashi wa baka na gaikokujin – ‘I’m a stupid foreigner’, as well as memories of Fuji-Q – an amusement park at the base of Mt Fuji that sports horrifying rollercoasters (enter my fear of heights) and a terrifying haunted house (enter my fear of everything else). There was a vague recollection that the ticket inspector on the shinkansen – bullet train would bow everytime he entered and exited a carriage (still true), and a lot of memories of sitting stark naked in an outdoor onsen – hot spring as snow powdered down around us, toasty bodies holding up frosty heads. Continue reading “On Japanuary”